When the object of a preposition gets moved to the front of a clause — because it is being questioned, relativised, or topicalised — the preposition is left behind at the end of the clause. This is called preposition stranding, and in Swedish it is not a colloquial shortcut but the neutral, default, preferred pattern. For English speakers this is a happy surprise tangled in an unhelpful school memory: many of us were taught that "a preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with." Swedish has no such taboo — quite the reverse. The construction your English teacher warned against is exactly the correct, natural Swedish one.
What stranding looks like
In a plain statement the preposition sits next to its object: Du bor *med Anna "You live with Anna." When you turn the object into a question word and move it to the front, the preposition does *not travel with it — it stays put at the end.
Vem bor du med?
Who do you live with? med stays at the end; only 'vem' moves to the front.
Vad är du intresserad av?
What are you interested in? The governed 'av' is stranded at the clause end.
Vilken stad kommer du ifrån?
Which city do you come from? ifrån left stranded after the verb.
Stranding in relative clauses
The same thing happens in relative clauses introduced by som (or with som omitted). The preposition that belongs with the relativised noun lands at the end of the relative clause.
Det är mannen som jag pratade med.
That's the man (that) I talked to. 'med' sits at the end of the relative clause.
Boken som jag tänker på heter 'Pippi'.
The book I'm thinking about is called 'Pippi'. The governed 'på' is stranded after the verb.
Här är pennan du frågade efter.
Here's the pen you asked for. (som dropped) 'efter' stranded at the end.
Notice that in everyday Swedish som is often dropped when it is the object, and the stranded preposition stays exactly where it is: pennan (som) du frågade efter.
Stranding under topicalisation
Swedish loves to move a non-subject element to the front of a main clause for emphasis (topicalisation — see the fundament page). When that fronted element is the object of a preposition, the preposition is again stranded.
Den här stolen sitter jag bra i.
This chair, I sit comfortably in (it). 'stolen' is fronted; 'i' is stranded at the end.
Den filmen har jag aldrig hört talas om.
That film, I've never heard of. The whole expression 'höra talas om' strands 'om'.
Honom kan du lita på.
Him you can rely on. Object pronoun fronted, governed 'på' left at the end.
The pied-piping alternative is formal/literary
Swedish can keep the preposition together with its object and move them as a unit to the front — med vem, i vilken, på vilket sätt. This is called pied-piping. But in Swedish it sounds formal, written, or literary, and overusing it makes speech sound stilted and old-fashioned. Reserve it for elevated register; in conversation, strand.
| Neutral (stranding) | Formal/literary (pied-piping) |
|---|---|
| Vem talade du med? | Med vem talade du? |
| ...avtalet som vi enades om | ...avtalet om vilket vi enades |
| Vilket sätt gjorde du det på? | På vilket sätt gjorde du det? |
Med vem hade du tänkt resa?
With whom had you intended to travel? (formal/literary) Pied-piped 'med vem' — fine in writing, stiff in speech.
Det är en fråga om vilken mycket har skrivits.
It is a question about which much has been written. (literary) Pied-piped 'om vilken' belongs to formal prose.
For everyday speech the same ideas are far more natural with stranding: Vem hade du tänkt resa med? and Det är en fråga som mycket har skrivits om.
Why this matters for governed prepositions
The verbs that govern a fixed preposition (tänka på, vänta på, fråga efter, intresserad av) are precisely the ones where stranding shows up most, because the preposition is semantically welded to the verb and naturally trails it. So once you have learned vänta på "wait for," the question form falls out automatically with the preposition at the end.
Vad väntar ni på?
What are you (all) waiting for? Governed 'på' from 'vänta på' is stranded.
Common Mistakes
❌ Med vem bor du? (as default spoken Swedish)
Over-formal — grammatical, but in conversation it sounds stiff. Strand it instead.
✅ Vem bor du med?
Who do you live with?
❌ Avoiding the question entirely because 'you can't end with a preposition'.
Mistaken transfer — the English taboo doesn't exist in Swedish. Stranding is correct and neutral.
✅ Vad är du rädd för?
What are you afraid of?
❌ Boken på som jag tänker heter 'Pippi'.
Incorrect — you can't park the preposition before 'som'. Strand it at the end: ...som jag tänker på.
✅ Boken som jag tänker på heter 'Pippi'.
The book I'm thinking about is called 'Pippi'.
❌ Vem pratade du? (dropping the preposition altogether)
Incorrect — the governed/required preposition must still appear, just at the end: Vem pratade du med?
✅ Vem pratade du med?
Who did you talk to?
Key Takeaways
- In questions, relative clauses, and topicalisations, the preposition is stranded at the end of the clause: Vem bor du *med?, mannen som jag pratade *med, Den stolen sitter jag bra i.
- Stranding is the neutral, preferred pattern in Swedish — the opposite of the prescriptive English warning against sentence-final prepositions.
- Pied-piping (med vem, om vilken, på vilket sätt) is grammatical but formal/literary; in conversation it sounds stiff. Strand by default.
- Don't drop the preposition when you move its object — it must still appear, just at the clause end (Vem pratade du *med?*).
- Governed prepositions (vänta på, intresserad av) strand most often, since they trail their verb naturally.
Now practice Swedish
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Start learning Swedish→Related Topics
- Verb + Preposition GovernmentB2 — Many Swedish verbs demand a specific, unpredictable preposition: tänka på (think about), vänta på (wait for), tro på (believe in), be om (ask for), tycka om (like), längta efter (long for), bero på (depend on). The governed preposition rarely matches English's, and it's unstressed (unlike a particle), so these combinations are vocabulary items you learn as whole units.
- Relative Pronouns (som, vilken, vars)B1 — Swedish gets by with one all-purpose relative word, som — it covers 'who', 'whom', 'which' and 'that' for people and things, as subject or object alike. The catch English speakers miss: som can be dropped when it's the object (boken jag läste) but never when it's the subject (boken som handlar om...), and Swedish strands its prepositions at the end (mannen som jag bor med) far more naturally than English does — while the pied-piping you'd reach for in English (mannen med vilken...) is stiff and bookish here.
- Asking Questions: OverviewA1 — Swedish builds questions with WORD ORDER alone — no helper word. A yes/no question puts the verb FIRST (Kommer du?); a wh-question puts a question word first and the verb still second (Vad gör du?). There is no Swedish 'do', so English speakers must delete their do-support instinct entirely. This page maps both types and routes you to the detail pages.
- The Fundament and TopicalizationB1 — The information-structure side of V2: what to put in first position (the fundament) and why. The fundament is the clause's link to prior discourse — its topic. Fronting an object or adverbial (topicalization) is routine and UNMARKED in Swedish, unlike English where it sounds emphatic or poetic, so learners should use it freely. When nothing else claims the slot, the dummy 'det' fills it (Det kom en man, Det regnar). The neutral default is the subject or a time adverbial.